One tenth of the largest companies across Southeast Europe operate in Bulgaria, the annual chart of ЅееNеwѕ ТОР 100 ЅЕЕ 2016 suggests. These are mostly run in the sectors of energy and heavy industry - the biggest oil refinery in this country, the Russian Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, the German copper production company Aurubis, the National Electric Company, Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant and others.

There are 18 banks operating in Bulgaria as branches of the region's Top 100 banks. 22 insurance companies on the Bulgarian market are also ranked among the Top 100 in this part of Europe.

All this suggests that although small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of Bulgaria's economy with 65 percent of all employed, this country is also a place for big business on a European scale.

SMEshave got a few trump cards in a competitive environment - flexibility, adaptability, the capacity to occupy every new market niche and to abandon quickly markets with no future. However, the big players are big, meaning that their potential to introduce innovations, manufacture cheaper products and satisfy mass and lasting needs is much greater. In practice SMEsand the blue chips in economy complement and are useful to each other.

One condition to be a big player in economy is to have a big market, and Bulgaria is a small country with a limited number of consumers. In principle this is a hurdle for the successful expansion of big businesses. It turns out though that in present-day Bulgaria this is not precisely the case for the simple reason that its economy is very open and connected with international markets where blue chips are bound to operate. Bulgaria exports and imports a major part of its gross domestic product /GDP/ and almost its entire industry and agriculture are dependent on the state of and demand on international markets. This is the most important premise for the development of big business - the free movement of goods, people and capital. No wonder then that companies operating in Bulgaria show very good results in the charts of large companies in Southeast Europe.

There is however another point to make regarding these charts and the openness of the Bulgarian economy. It is that almost all “Bulgarian” companies in these charts have foreign owners - Russians, Americans, Germans, Italians, Austrians etc. This does not prevent them from paying their taxes in Bulgaria, as well as wages to Bulgarian workers and employees; to get supplied locally and use local suppliers and contractors - SMEs, and to produce GDP, i.e. welfare.

It is common knowledge that the countries of Southeast Europe are not the largest and strongest in terms of economy and that the regional big players are not the world's blue chips. But if you take the country itself, its economy, it is a fact that its macroeconomic indices only seldom take leading positions worldwide. On the whole Bulgaria ranks among the top 50 countries as per competitiveness, productivity, conditions for doing business, GDPper capita etc. This suggests good performance and good development of the country, as well as a practical and realistic approach of the authorities and businesses to the country's real potential. Currently the Bulgarian economy is in a good shape, unlike a few economies in Europe: its GDP is steadily growing, unemployment is declining and the welfare of boththe state and the citizens is on the rise.

English Daniela Konstantinova